Hurricane Katrina Disrupts Production of Major Industrial Plants on Gulf Coast

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). The effects of hurricane Katrina have suspended many industrial plant operations in at least eight different counties in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. There are over 260 industrial plants located in the counties of Mobile and Baldwin, Alabama, Harrison, Hancock and Jackson, Mississippi and Jefferson, Saint Charles and Plaquemine, Louisiana employing an estimated 58,000 people.

Many large petroleum refiners and petrochemical producers began reducing production rates and preparing for a controlled shutdown on Friday, August 26th, and by Saturday August 27th, most had shutdown completely. A very small number of industrial plant operations in the affected region have resumed some small level of production, although several major natural gas and product pipelines serving these plants with feedstock remain out of service limiting production. Pipeline companies are aggressively evaluating the level of damage to determine what repairs are necessary to restore operations safely, and as of this writing some limited throughput on the Colonial and Plantation Pipeline crude oil pipeline systems had resumed.

Many companies are working this Labor Day holiday to repair damage and return to production. New Orleans based power generator, Entergy Corporation is working round the clock to repair damaged transmission lines, electrical substations, and power plants that were damaged during the hurricane. Entergy serves 2.7 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. About half of those customers lost power due to the storm. Entergy provides electrical service to eleven petroleum refineries in the impacted area. Three of the refineries did not lose electrical service and the company has reestablished power to five others. The remaining three are downriver from New Orleans and have suffered from flooding. The company hopes to restore service to those flooded refineries within ten days.

Of the ten petroleum refiners and two major ethylene producers in the region that Industrialinfo.com identified as offline due to the hurricane, almost half will remain down for several more weeks while three refiners have already returned to service and at least one other is in the process of ramping up for production early next week. Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW ) had planned back-to-back maintenance turnarounds of its two ethylene production units located in Taft, Louisiana beginning in mid-September. The units remain offline and a decision is expected soon to either rescheduled the turnarounds or go ahead and proceed with planned maintenance activities ahead of schedule. At least 43 power plants were located in the path of Katrina and still hundreds of thousands remain without electricity. The process of identifying electrical substation damages and transmission line failures could take weeks and even longer to repair, many months in some cases.

The level of damage to other industrial plants located in the path of devastating hurricane Katrina is still being evaluated, as the nation mobilizes to rescue and rebuild New Orleans and Gulf Coast areas.

Industrialinfo.com maintains a database of industrial plant information, featuring the Gulf Coast Online Plant Directory.

Industrial Information Resources (IIR) is a Marketing Information Service company that has been doing business for over 22 years. IIR is respected as a leader in providing comprehensive market intelligence pertaining to the industrial processing, heavy manufacturing, and energy-related industries throughout the world.